


Downpour

by MDJensen



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, Helpful Steve, homesick Danno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 07:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15138053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MDJensen/pseuds/MDJensen
Summary: Set in early/mid season 1. Danny's having a rough day and Steve actually manages to be pretty supportive.





	Downpour

It had been a bad day. There was no other way to describe it. It had started bad, and only gotten worse; not necessarily because anything else had happened but because Danny just hadn’t gotten over it.

He just _hadn’t_.

And so he’d spent the entire day— literally the ten or so hours since then— half a second away from tears. Runny-nosed, prickly-eyed. Biting his lip, breathing in careful rhythm, because too sharp an inhale would almost definitely lead to a sob. 

All he wanted to do was go home. Gulp some whiskey, hide in the shower, and finally allow himself to break down. 

So why was he still in his office?

It was past six, and this was getting stupid. He’d wanted to do nothing but leave since arriving. It had gotten bad enough, a few times throughout the day, that he had almost— almost— pulled a hide-in-the-handicapped-stall kind of thing, but he had one of those faces that advertised even little jags for hours after the fact, and he didn’t feel like it. Didn’t feel like Steve looking at him weird. Like Chin asking after him, because bless him, the guy absolutely would have. Didn’t feel like Kono seeing him that much of a mess. So he’d held it off.

Was this some sort of weird self-flagellation thing, that he was still sitting on his stiff office couch?

Or had this whatever-it-was literally rooted him in place?

Eh. Either seemed totally possible, to be honest.

Still, he really should fight it. At least enough to get to his feet, drag himself back to his little shithole. Or to a bar, maybe, or just somewhere else, because he was pretty sure everybody had gone home for the day, but he wasn’t positive— and the last thing he wanted was for somebody to walk in on him like this—

“Whoa, Danno. You’re lookin’ kinda rough.”

Awesome. Steve. Because he wasn’t feeling miserable enough already. Why not add a witness, just to really drive it all home?

Danny said nothing. Maybe Steve would get bored and leave, predator-like.

Instead Steve plopped onto the couch beside him, bumped his fist to Danny’s knee. “Seriously, buddy, you okay?”

And oh, fuck. Fuck, _fuck_. It was like his eyes had saved up the tears he’d held back all day, and now they were intent on dumping them all out at once. In a burst. In a gush. Like the awning over a bodega finally giving in at the end of a rainstorm, and Danny could do nothing— _nothing_ — to stop the downpour, just bury his face in his hands and try not to blubber too loudly. 

“Oh, hey.” Steve sounded pretty surprised, actually, and distantly Danny wished he could look up and see Steve’s face right now. The guy was hard to catch off guard. But there was no way that was happening, because fuck, it was humiliating enough just for Steve to know he was crying, let alone actually see tears. (Not that he hadn’t before. Danny’d gotten that out of the way in the _very_ early days of their partnership, because of course he had, but that didn’t mean he actually wanted it to turn into a regular thing.)

“Don’t worry about it, buddy,” Steve murmured. “Hey, I’m not leaving. Just getting you a tissue, huh?” And Danny could feel him moving, feel the way he lunged forward, all legs and arms, to pluck the tissue box from Danny’s desk more or less without leaving Danny’s side. He sat again. Then Danny felt an edge of cardboard being nudged against his arm, and took one hand from his eyes to grab a fistful of tissues.

Just in time too. Apparently his nose had also saved up everything he’d been sniffling back all day, and now he felt the watery tickle that meant it was starting to drip. 

“Thanks,” he mumbled, and blew his nose a few times. The snot was thin and came effortlessly, albeit with an embarrassing little gurgle. 

“What’s wrong, buddy?”

Jesus, what wasn’t?

“Um,” Danny muttered. “Divorce shit.”

“Less specific than your usual rants.”

 _Oh_. Oh, Steven, seriously, buddy, you’re literally asking for it.

Fine.

“I had Grace this weekend. And she hadn’t remembered a fresh uniform for today, right? So I washed hers from Friday—seems logical, right? Anyway, apparently I didn’t fucking do it right, because there is apparently a right and a wrong way to wash uniforms, and it faded a _smidge_ , Steve, but that is not acceptable because Grace’s school is not the kind of school you wear a faded uniform shirt to, because we’re not fucking _commoners_ , and I just—Jesus Christ, I was just trying to do the right thing, you know, but all it got me was my ex-wife _humiliating_ me in front of my daughter for _five minutes_ first thing on a Monday because I used the wrong detergent on a fucking polo shirt when I was literally just trying to be nice and not bother Rachel with bringing a uniform when she came to pick her up, and I—I just— _fuck_.”

They were really in it now. Way past the point of no return, so Danny buried his face in his hands again and let go a couple of awkward sobs. “Literally just tr-trying to be nice,” he choked out.

It wasn’t just the uniform thing, to be fair; it was _everything_. 

Grace. Rachel. Homesickness. Heat. The sneaking feeling that he was missed less every day. The awful nameless thing in the pit of his guts that, to be honest, probably had a name, and the name was probably Clinical Depression. 

That, and he hadn’t had a decent bagel in over a year now. 

Everything just sucked, was all, so sue him if he couldn’t keep it in, play it cool, 100% of the time.

“Want a ride home?” Steve asked, after a minute or two, and it was a very nice offer but it only wrenched loose a fresh round of tears. That shitty apartment wasn’t home. Not even a fucking penthouse would be home on this godforsaken island. 

Even Steve picked up on that one. “Wanna crash with me tonight? Or, uh, grab dinner?”

The problem was that he didn’t want any of that; he wanted Jersey, and his parents living room, and his mother’s objectively mediocre cooking; he wanted to be 25 again, in love, with a kid on the way and at least a glimmer of hope for a happy life. 

He wanted Rachel to still love him. Oh, fuck, he wanted Rachel to still love him. The truth of that hit him like a sledgehammer and if there’d been any chance of stopping the tears soon, that chance had now vanished. 

“Okay, buddy,” Steve murmured. And maybe he’d been taking human lessons or something, because he stopped asking questions then, slung an arm around Danny’s back, and just sat with him. 

And fine, that was—nice. Comfort was nice and human contact was nice, and even Steve seemed nice, for the moment.

Danny closed his eyes, let the last few tears fall quietly.

Finally it seemed over. Breathing slowly, hiccupping a little, Danny hunched forward and rested his elbows on his knees, chin on his palms.

“Listen, babe,” he croaked, finally. “Never get married, okay?”

There was a snort, then Steve mussed the back of his hair. “It ends in tears?”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

Steve’s hand had settled, and Danny realized now that he was sort of squeeze-rubbing his neck. Which was, as before, nice.

This massive squall of a sigh rose up then, stuttered its way out of Danny’s lungs, and when it was out he finally felt—huh.

He felt better, actually.

He hadn’t been expecting that, to be honest; crying was just something that happened because you couldn’t stop it and sure, he knew about it making you feel better, but it had been a long damn time since it had actually worked that way for him. Weird.

But, hey, when you had a stomachache, sometimes all you really needed to do was take a big, nasty shit. This was the emotional equivalent of that, maybe. 

It wasn’t until Steve made a questioning sort of noise that Danny realized he’d made himself laugh at that.

Danny sighed again, though much quieter than last time. He flumped back on the couch, freeing up his hands so he could crack his knuckles, and lay there bonelessly for a few seconds, relishing how it felt to be on the other side of the breakdown. It felt good. _Too_ good, to be honest, to feel embarrassed at the same time, at least not just yet.

Steve passed the tissues back, and Danny blew his nose again. Then he bopped Steve on the arm, and cozied up to him, just slightly.

“Dinner?” Steve prompted.

“Y’r place,” Danny breathed, eyes at half-mast. “Yes t’food, no t’goin’ ou’, le’s order in. Mm?”

“Sounds good, Danno. How you doin’, buddy?”

“Tired,” Danny huffed. Which was better than wrecked, all things considered.

“Okay. Let’s get a move on dinner, then.” Steve pushed to his feet, didn’t help Danny up but did stand motionless until they were side-by-side. “We could call ahead, so we don’t have to wait as long. What’re you in the mood for?”

“Commander Control Freak, thi’should make you very happy: I really don’ care righ’ now.”

“Okay. I’ve got it handled, then.”

Steve got a hand on his back, then, and nudged him towards the door; and for all that his pushiness genuinely annoyed Danny sometimes, right now, he was surprisingly content with it.


End file.
